We are in the midst of another wet season in northern Nigeria, and the inhabitants of the ancient city of Kano are once again confronting an alarming moment of ecological crisis. It is part of the 21st-century global challenge that our historic city is becoming increasingly familiar with. Submerged streets now stand as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by climate change.
Yet, flooding is only one of the many ecological problems confronting a city long grappling with environmental degradation. Gully erosion (especially on the outskirts), depleted underground water reserves, and rising summer temperatures are some of the pressing realities.
Unlike in some other places, the case of flooding in Kano is exacerbated by a poor and inadequate urban drainage system, an appalling sanitation culture—as people dump refuse into the few existing drainages meant to evacuate floodwater—and unchecked land reclamation, which has led to the disappearance of numerous ponds and open spaces within the city.
These ponds, in particular, once played pivotal roles in absorbing excess rainwater during the wet season and also in replenishing underground water reserves. But with a growing population and an inadequate water supply infrastructure, pressure continues to mount on underground water sources, worsened by the aggressive drilling of boreholes. How did we find ourselves in this environmental quagmire?
In searching for answers, I came across several important works on the subject. One paper that stands out is “Land Degradation and Environmental Quality Decline in Urban Kano” by Professor Aliyu Salisu Barau.
Barau offers both a diagnosis and a prescription.
According to the academic, pre-colonial Kano city and its urban infrastructure were shaped by the religious beliefs of its people. “Kano benefited from Islamic principles of land use planning, such as harim and hima, which date back to the first Islamic century,” he explains.
Using a sketch from 1826, Barau argues that, to a considerable extent, Kano aligned with most of the nine planning requirements for a built urban environment identified by the 14th/15th-century Muslim scholar, ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun, in his celebrated work Mukaddimah.
“Town walls and spaces for urban agriculture to boost food security, as well as ponds and marshes that could prevent urban flooding, all feature in the sketch. Indeed, the vast vacant urban lands made it possible for the population to benefit from basic ecosystem services and livelihoods, including through the market, which at the time served as a supply base for trans-Saharan trade,” he wrote.
Beyond Islamic planning principles, Barau also draws parallels with Ebenezer Howard’s 19th-century work To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Howard’s theory envisioned a utopian city that struck a balance between people and nature through deliberate human actions.
“Indeed, the whole idea of the garden city revolves around institutions, since individuals would require routine behaviours and regulations that translate into personal and eventually collective actions that support environmental sustainability. Howard proposed an ideal city model for industrialising European and American societies at a time when those countries were grappling with pollution issues that threatened public health and well-being,” Barau explains.
But when did things begin to fall apart? Again, Barau provides insight: “A few years after Kano became the capital of the newly created Kano State in 1967, the city soon lost its centuries-old land sustainability traditions. The key pressures on urban land—rapid population growth and the centralisation of development and infrastructure—appear to be the major drivers of declining urban environmental quality.”
Among the consequences he identifies are unprecedented land conversion, increased frequency of urban flooding, erosion, the disappearance of most open and green spaces, and near exhaustion of underground water sources. According to him, the cumulative impacts of these sustainability challenges cast a bleak shadow over the future of urban Kano.
This is perhaps why the alarm bells must keep ringing to reawaken our collective sense of urgency.
Kano’s population continues to grow at an uneven pace relative to its urban infrastructure. Besides the high fertility rate, the city keeps absorbing migrants displaced by insecurity in other parts of the region. This calls for coordinated efforts by policymakers and stakeholders to develop innovative, inclusive, and collaborative solutions to this growing crisis.
The state government has taken a commendable step by appointing Dr. Dahir Muhammad Hashim—a youthful climate change activist—as the Commissioner of Environment and Climate Change. However, he cannot succeed alone; the support of all stakeholders is essential.
Musa, an indigene of Kano, wrote in from Abuja.
